


My Brother's Keeper

by MGNemesi



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: (Tim assuming they're brothers and Jason letting him), Depressive Thoughts, Developing Relationship, False Identity, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Pre-Slash, Temporary Amnesia, Twin Scars, canon AU, old canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 23:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9572051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MGNemesi/pseuds/MGNemesi
Summary: Tim wakes up. He doesn't know who he is, where he is, what happened to him. But the man with the sad ice-shards eyes, the shock of white in his hair and the anger etched deep at the corner of his mouth tell him he's Robin. *His* Robin.Thus begins a journey through lost memories, where the only certainty Tim has, is Jason. Jason's love for him, and his own love for his brother.Because... this is what they are, right? Bro---thers?Meanwhile, Jason struggles, stews in his doubt. He only wanted to gain himself a sidekick. A Robin of his own. He... never... expected the Pretender... his... nemesis... to touch something deep inside him. Never expected to care so deeply.





	1. A Simple Question

**Title:** A Simple Question

**Verse:** My Brother's Keeper.

**Fandom:** DCU- Batman.

**Rating:** R.

**Genre:** Overall: action, romance, angst, introspection, slice of life.

**Wordcount:** 1540 circa.

**Characters/Pairings:** Jason Todd and Tim Drake. Possible cameos by Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Roy Harper. Has a 99,9% to stray off the gen path and become a shippy JayTim verse towards the end.

**Warnings:** Self-betaed. Mostly old-canon. Violence, blood.

**Summary:** All in all, it was a really simple question. “Who are you?”.

**Nemenote:** Okay. This. This has been in the back-burner for, literally, years. I kid you not. It hasn't been written years ago, though. I just had the basic idea for this verse very, very early in my fandom venture. I never quite knew how to start this, and besides, I've got so many plotnotes for so many different verses, that this was... put away. Not forgotten, but... gave up upon, if you know what I mean. Then the other night I dreamed this. I feel so lame, but I that's what happened. *sheepish shrug* I saw this story unfold, from beginning to end. And while I forgot most details – _the hell were you doing in Gotham, Roy?_ \- I suddenly had the urge to write the prologue. It's a bit confusing, but that's its charm, I guess. XD

Also: in the original plan, this was supposed to be six chapter _top_ , all medium-lenght. I... don't know if that still stands. I may write short ficlets for it instead. We'll see. /babbling.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

**H** e wakes up, and everything around him is dark.

It's as though he hasn't opened his eyes at all – the back of his eyelids and the world around him are the same shade of teeming, cruel black, closing in on him on all sides like surging waters.

He blinks quickly, but no image appears, not even those gaseous shapes of light that swim in front of one's eyes when they squeeze them shut too tightly.   
There are other sensations, though dim.  
He can feel dust coating his nostrils, the roof of his mouth. He can _smell_ it. His head pounds, his heartbeat is an incessant tide inside his ears. His forehead burns. Something warm and sticky coats the side of his temple, it trails down slowly, like questing fingers, reaching towards his nose, his mouth.

He blinks again.

What he registers next is a sensation of warmth, of pressure. The weight of a body laying against his own, _above_ his own, pinning him down, covering him – protecting him?, from all that darkness. It's an heavy body. It's hot, like metal that's been exposed too long to sunlight or flame. It's hard. It's armoured. Its scent is that of leather, of gunpowder and graveyard dust. Of sooth and blood and something plastic, something rubbery; an earthy, chalky smell that should be anything but comforting, but comforting it is – it pulls his eyelids down; like an old lullaby, it permeates the inside of his brain and tells him: “rest now. You're safe.”

He sighs.

He lets go.

He goes down under.

He falls asleep.

 

When he wakes a second time, the scent is still there. It lingers like a garland around him, presses down against his face like a gentle glove. The cold night air is nipping at his cheeks, a malevolent puppy with needle-like teeth. He's not floating, but he's being carried, he realizes. Glancing up he sees darkness still, but sprinkled with stars. Pale and distant through the heavy fumes of the city, but there they are: like small pinpricks in the black cardboard expanse of the night, needle-thin holes letting through a dribble of dusty light. The stickiness from his forehead has trickled down, glued his right eye close, coated his cheeks, a revolting weight. It has reached the side of his mouth, and without thinking, he licks at the side of it, tasting salt and copper, sweat and blood. Somewhere above him, he can hear muttered expletives, low-voiced and constant. A litany that is like a flood, a tide, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, and there's another sound, a heart pounding, steady and angry, right under his ear. His tongue feels like lead in his mouth, like hot sand and the dregs of bitter coffee. He settles deeper into that strange embrace, his cheek pressed against that heart that pounds like a war-drum, that chest that smells like leather and potassium nitrate and charcoal and sulphur. Blackness embraces him. He embraces it back.

 

The third time, he wakes up in pain.  
A howl rips out of his throat, a high, keening noise not unlike a maddened beast's. He pants and thrashes and reaches out, hands twisted into claws, teeth gnashing, legs kicking feebly, conscious of nothing but the white-hot brand of pain. His head throb, it burns, it _burst_ with an excess of pain. His legs hurt, his chest feels tight, and so does his throat.

Hands – big hands, gloved hands, dark with sooth, reeking of smoke – these big hands catch his own, squeeze tight – _much too tight_ , renewing the pain; and he yowls again, lower this time, feeling the burn and blur of tears in his eyes.

He blinks quickly, and his vision clears, sharpens, focuses. A strange man is pinning him down to a smelly mattress in a run-down apartment – behind his broad shoulders, the world is nothing but shadows and spotted wallpaper peeling off cracked-through walls, it's broken furniture and mildew stains and scurrying rats and debris and swirls of dust moving around like evil ghosts. The pain comes back when he tries to move, to free himself. Low and long, he whimpers, trying to release some pressure, sagging back against a bed that is as hard and humid as driftwood and exuding just the same sort of smell.

The man holding him down moves away, looking mad, so mad, his green-blue eyes flashing, like sunlight glinting off crystalline waters. His hair is black as coal and white as snow, both at once. There is blood under his nose, on his lip, the side of his neck. His lips are pulled back, showing the glint of teeth. When he talks, his voice is a low rumble that rattles through the bones, like the voice of thunder.

“The FUCK did you think you were doing?!” He yells, and when his yell is met with nothing but a flinch, he throws his hands in the air, growling deep in his chest. “Were you trying to kill us both, Tim? _Were you?_ ” he snarls, and his hands – those big hands, sturdy and soft, like iron encased in leather – come down and dig into his flesh – Tim's flesh – haul Tim by the forearms and shake, making his teeth clatter, and his eyes widen and his breathing stop, getting stuck, right there, in the middle of his chest, an icy-cold weight and his head _hurts,_ everything hurts, and he's lost and confused and in pain, but this man has saved him, so he has to ask, Tim has to ask, he ask to know, and he so he blurts--

“Who are you?”

The man with the Caribbean eyes and the snow-white streak in his hair goes as still as stone.

“Don't – don't you fuckin' play games with me, you shitty little--”

“Who are you?” Tim asks again, licking his lips. They taste of blood and sweat, still.

He shifts closer, reaches up, uses one hand to cup a bruised cheek, while the other curls against the thrumming beat of the man's heart. He leans in – to the beat and the warmth and the scent – _smell_ – scent of death and ashes that clings to his powerful frame because it's comforting, and comfort is all he needs right now, really, something to hold his weight, to stop the world from spinning, something to curl against and underneath, a support, a blanket, a firm spot in the eye of the hurricane, a shield and sword to keep the bursting pain at bay, but the man doesn't let Tim curl against him, he starts away instead, like a wild stallion, eyes wide, so wide, too wide, palms held up, and the wash basin he had balanced next to his thigh clatters to the ground, bloody water spilling in a widening puddle on the floor.

“I saved you,” the man cries out angrily, disbelief clear across his face. “You almost got us both killed with that fucking stunt, but I saved you all the same and now you give me this shit? Seriously, what the hell? What do you want, distract me, nervestrike me and then take me to the Bat? I'm the one who saved you, you asshole, I thought you had a bit more honour than that Tim, I swear--”

“Tim?” he asks back, trying out the name. He licks his lips again, a nervous gesture. “Is... Is that my name?”

The man's breath hitches.

“I— _what_?”

“Tim. Is that my name? I don't – I don't remember.”

He reaches up, drags himself closer, close enough to touch, and puts his palm, flat, on the man's wrist. Feeling the pulse drumming underneath the skin is oddly comforting, as though he weren't expecting to feel a pulse of life in that big, armoured body.

“Is my name Tim?”

The man swallows.

“You don't-- you really don't know?”

Tim shakes his head, flinches when pains explodes between his ears, sending white-hot flowers bursting in front of his eyes. He hisses out in pain, clutches to the man's hand, and wheezes out:

“N-no. No I – I have no--” he glances up.

Presently, he looks a mess – a lovely mess, dishevelled and bleeding, blue eyes heavy-lidded and hazy, cheeks as white as chalk under the sheen of long-dried blood. His pupils flutter, his pulse throbs at the base of his neck, poundpoundpound, as fast as a rabbit's.

He licks his lips. The taste of blood is gone. He misses it?

“ _Who are you?_ ” he asks, and the man sags down on the side of the bed, his eyes moving restlessly across Tim's features.

“Jason. I'm Jason.”

Tim nods again, slowly this time, taking it in. The names feel right somehow, not familiar, neither or them; but fitting in a way he couldn't explain.

“And who am I?”

The man – _Jason_ hesitates a moment. Then something like delight – madcap and cruel – flashes by his eyes, and he grinds out, his voice choked with what feels like extreme, _extreme_ pleasure:

“You're Tim. Tim Drake. _And you are my Robin._ ”

 


	2. Looking out from underneath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And he wonders, what has he done, to be hated this much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Jason is wounded, and he decides to stitch the wound close himself, with semi-graphic, however brief depictions of blood.

 

 **Title:** Looking out from underneath

 **Verse:** My Brother's Keeper.

 **Fandom:** DCU- Batman.

 **Rating:** PG-13/R-ish.

 **Genre:** This part:angst, introspection, slice of life.

 **Wordcount:** 1400 circa.

 **Characters/Pairings:** Jason Todd and Tim Drake.

 **Warnings:** Self-betaed. Mostly old-canon. Mention of wounds and blood.

 **Summary:** And he wonders, what has he done, to be hated this much?

 **Nemenote:**...Tim-feels happened. I. Have no idea why. Uhm. Sorry? ;0;

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 **T** im counts the cracks on the ceiling. One by one, he counts them, over and over. He counts them, and then adds to the sum the spots of moisture leaking from the roof, the strange scratches and burns where bullets grazed the plaster, the holes where they embedded themselves in. Just for fun. Sometimes, when he's half-dozing, drowsy on either pain or painkillers, he takes those holes and connects them all in fantastic shapes, like a little child inventing his own constellations in an ocean of stars. The Crow is perched just above the window, head tilted, lying in wait. The Crocus is arranged artfully just above the bed, the delicate swirls of its stem and the drooping head, bent demurely like a lover over Tim's own. Over the door, mean and dark, there is a huge, dark Bat with its wings spread, its mouth open.

It makes Tim shiver and look away.

His eyes fall on what looks like a tiny, inquisitive birdie if he squints his eyes just so. Somehow, it is not a better view.

He shifts carefully in bed, mindful of the burns, of the arrange of scratches and bruises painted across his skin, of the cracked bones aching underneath the black-and-blue flesh. His weariness is bone-deep, but he also feels restless in a way he can't explain. It's not the shadows in the room; has no fear of odd monsters that might be lurking under the bed. All in all, it feels like he's waiting, perched, like a predator

(or is it prey?)

for something to come for him from beyond the reach of his eyes.

Something he needs.

His head aches. His neck is killing him.

There are two little pills on the bedside table (an upturned crate, with a Chinese logo glued on the side that looks like chicken scrawls), sitting on top of a square of paper. The water in the cheap, bright-orange plastic cup is warm and tastes mouldy on his tongue, but Tim uses it to wash down the painkillers and feels grateful for every drop.

Closing his eyes, he sees Jason. He imagines his big body manoeuvring in the pitch-black darkness as expertly as though his eyes were a cat's eyes, all-seeing and aglow from within. He sees him bending down over Tim's sleeping, sweaty head, and carefully placing pills and water down on the crate. Tim imagines a lingering look, tight with the mistrust that never seems to vacate his brother's countenance; a lingering touch perhaps, fingers trailing down the swell of his cheek, tracing the edge of his jaw, as gentle as a breeze. And then Jason is slipping out of the window and into the night, silent as a ghost.

He can't quite decide if it is fantasy or memory, but he knows Jason must've put the medicine within reach before going out for the night.

Jason is gruff, and angry, and sad and hurt and has this light in his eyes, this fire, ever-simmering, like poison under his skin, and he looks like an avenging demon more than a ministering angel, but he takes care of Tim.

He cares _for_ Tim.

Tim blinks quickly against the pillow, and realizes that it is Jason whom he's waiting for in the crack of dawn, feverish eyes pinned to the darkness shifting beyond the window. And in the same heartbeat he realizes: he needn't worry. He needn't wait. Jason will come. He will not leave Tim alone. Never, ever more.

Before he knows it, he falls asleep.

* * * * *

 

He wakes from dreamless slumber to the clatter of metal on ceramic. Kitchen sounds, _familiar_ sounds, that bring a smile to his lips. There is a harsher noise then, followed by a brief string of curses, and Tim stops smiling, because when Jason slips into the bedroom, he's not nursing a cup of coffee (like Tim had expected), but clutching his shoulder and trying to stitch close a gash the size of Texas.

“What happened?” Tim asks, struggling to contain his own hiss of pain as he sits up and rests his back against the wall.

Jason makes a grunt as he drops onto a dingy chair, but doesn't give a proper answer. He's naked to the waist, his hair wet, sooth dabbed across his torso, the gleam of sweat sketching his bulging muscles in sharp contrast in the darkness. His scars stretch as he moves, pale and daunting, drawing constellation of their own. His fingers keep move-move-moving across the wound, unhurried and steady, precise like a surgeon's. Sinking the needle deep, dipping it up and around, sinking it again amongst rivulets of blood.

He never makes a sound.

It takes him five minutes, but finally he drops the needle in the basin balanced on his knee. He grabs up a bottle of liquor from somewhere on the floor. Taking a breath, he upturns it and pours it whole on top of the stitches. Tim winces in sympathy. Jason barely makes an hiss, teeth sunk so deep into his bottom lip they rip the skin. Blood wells up, stark against the white flash of teeth and,

“What happened?” Tim asks again, sounding breathless.

Jason grabs a wad of gauze, starts dressing the wound and answers:

“ _Patrol_ happened,” in a voice so harsh he might as well have punched Tim in the stomach.

Tim purses his lips, looks down and away.

“I'm. Uhm. _Sorry_.”

Jason snorts. It's ugly and dark, and not for the first time, Tim wonders why his brother is so full of hate. Is he just angry at Tim for the mishap at the Meth Lab? That one “stunt” Tim played, that wiped Tim's memory clean and left Jason with a burn stretched from his neck to the small of his back?

Tim clenches his fists into the blankets.

He has no illusions – he knows he is at fault. But he wonders, and he fears, that there's something else. That this hate, this _anger_ , roots into an older, deeper sin. Is Jason perpetually angry at Tim, and is Tim deserving of such hate?

He doesn't know.

Is he nothing more than a burden that Jason carries around?

He has no idea.

Is he nothing more than a nuisance?

He can't _remember._

But the feeling of failure – of being useless, and not up to expectations; of being sub-par and barely adequate – it is a familiar weight. It curls at the pit of his stomach, sits there like a snake coiled tight, fangs out and pumping poison inside Tim's heart

and

it

is

just

so

_familiar._

“I'm _sorry_ ,” he repeats again, more fiercely this time.

Jason glowers up at him. Exhaustion is etched in his face, painted a deep black under his eyes. Tim suspects that he himself looks no better – but he is in bed, and Jason is out there, doing their job, and the icy tendrils of guilt spreading through Tim's veins at the thought? They are familiar too, old residents that have vacated the shell of his body for a brief spell, and are now coming back to their old abode.

“Yeah. Well. You weren't there,” Jason bites out.

It could mean “not your fault”, perhaps. But Tim answers: “That's what I'm sorry about,” and Jason laughs, dark and rippling and low, and it would be such an awesome laugh, deep and throaty and rich – a bedroom, rumpled-sheets, satisfied, smoky laugh – if only it weren't so _bitter._

“Go to sleep.”

“I've sleep all night alre--”

“Go. To. Sleep.” Jason roars, springing from the chair. Angrily, he flings the basin aside. It clatters against the wall. Plaster and bloody gauze and needles and medical string fall all over the floor. Tim bites his lip, but Jason is out of the door in two strides, and out of the flat in two more.

Jason cares for Tim.

Jason takes care _of_ Tim.

But he does it so begrudgingly. So angrily, with such a burning loathing in his eyes, that Tim wonders: what have I done, in this past I don’t remember, to be regarded with such hate by my own family? What have I done? And also: how do I remedy it? How do I better myself, how do I become what I need to be to gain some love?

“Welcome home,” he whispers as he slips under the blanket and curls into a ball.

No one answers him, but that is not why his eyes burn.

The feeling of being ignored is as familiar as the previous ones.

It chokes him.

 


	3. Someone to Watch Over Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The feelings of inadequacy and hurt and of invisibility, of being hurt and belittled and ignored, they are so familiar to him, that Tim thinks he can swallow them down. Like a seasoned knife eater, he will be able to feel their sharp edge cut down his throat and ignore it. But Jason's disdain hurts in strange and entirely new ways. As does the thought of having to leave him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost a month-long wait and it's a filler chapter and it hurts. I have no excuses. ;0;

**Title:** Someone to Watch Over Me.

 **Verse:** My Brother's Keeper.

 **Fandom:** DCU- Batman.

 **Rating:** PG-13.

 **Genre:** This part:introspection, a bit of bleak and oppressive atmosphere, but that's it.

 **Wordcount:** 1135.

 **Characters:** Jason Todd and Tim Drake.

 **Warnings:** Self-betaed. Mostly old-canon. Mention of wounds and blood.

 **Summary:** The feelings of inadequacy and hurt and of _invisibility_ , of being hurt and belittled and ignored, they are so familiar to him, that Tim thinks he can swallow them down. Like a seasoned knife eater, he will be able to feel their sharp edge cut down his throat and ignore it. But Jason's disdain hurts in strange and entirely new ways. As does the thought of having to _leave him_.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 **T** here is a candle inside a glass on top of his crate-turned-bedside-table. It is small and it flickers wildly, like a scared little mouse, or a trapped butterfly perhaps, beating fragile wings against its cage. And yet, pale and dainty as it is, the candle sends strange shadows all across them room; deep, dark shadows that dance across Jason's sleeping face, quick and roaming like restless fingers.

He's tucked on the couch, half-turned on one side, his broad shoulders barely fitting on the dingy little piece of furniture. His legs are propped on the armrest, boots still on, caked with mud. The side of his face is pressed against the faded green cushions, that white streak drawing a boyish curl across his forehead. His jacket is dirty brown at the shoulder where he was injuried, and black with sooth along the hem, the cuffs, the neck. It is dirty and stained and it's also the only blanket he kept for himself.

Tim watches him from across the room, silent and still. He is listening to the cadence of Jason's breath – in and out, in and out, deceptively calm, the rhythm of it feels somewhat relaxing, hypnotic to a fault – and feeling the night breathe on the back of his own neck like a big, prowling cat. A mean jungle-thing with watering jaws and glowing embers in lieu of eyes.

Tim tries to synchronize their breathing – and no, the word “tries” is misleading a best, it implies an effort that just isn't _needed._ Tim's own chest starts moving in time with Jason's with no conscious effort on Tim's part. It feels easy. Practised, even. A calming exercise. It feels a bit like a ritual. Tatters of images

(a yellow cape billowing and a camera's flash illuminating the night and his own eyes reflected on a curved glass case, a petite domino mask splattered with red)

crowd and flee his mind, too quick to make sense of.

Tim shifts on the bed, huddling deeper under his flimsy, tattered blankets. He bites his lip, and it is only partly due to the pain from his injuries.

It's been five days since he first woke up, and his aches are starting to dull. He is recovering swiftly. His fever broke a couple of days ago. The spells of dizziness and the drowsiness disappeared soon after that. Just this morning, he's dragged himself out of bed, across the room and all the way to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and his knees started wobbling only on the way back. From here onwards, he will get better in leaps and bounds.

(he doesn’t know why, but he can _tell_ that's how it's going to go. He can predict his own recovery time; he has it down to the day and hour and _minute_ , as though he's been _trained_ to calculate his body's response to injuries and pain, as though he's honed his body, or been _made_ to hone it. Train it. Temper it, like a Knight's blade)

He huddles deeper still, breathing in the musty, sweaty air, and thinks about Jason's Caribbean eyes. Thinks about what they might see, when they focus on Tim. He thinks about the frown that is in perpetual residence on Jason's handsome face, and thinks if it ever lifts – if it ever lifted before, just for Tim, and if ever will again.

He thinks of what will happen, once he's back on his feet. Tim shifts again, restless. He clenches his fists. Licks his bottom lip, and tastes sweat. No matter whether his eyes are open or close, he can see his immediate future unroll like an awkward stop-motion film, a sequence of blurry stills, all coloured the tasteless, faded brown of mud.

Tim will get better.

And.

Jason will send him away.

Tim wants that, he thinks. To remove himself, since his presence is such a bother.

Except that he does not.

Not really.

What he wants is to _stay._

Stay with _Jason._

Jason with his Caribbean-eyes and his perpetual frown and his gruffy mannerism and his flashing anger; Jason with the hurt that crinkles at the corner of his eyes and with the demons clinging to his back and with that curious white streak that makes one want to run their fingers across his hair, to tug on and play with it like one might play with a cat's tail.

Tim has no fear of the unknown. He has no doubt he will survive. Even devoid of his memory and his identity, he has no doubt that he will make it, out there, on the streets of Gotham. If there is something he knows for true in his confusion, is that he is a fearless little solider. A survivor. If

(WHEN)

Jason wants him gone, Tim can go. He can go and he can _make it_.

He just.

_Doesn't want to._

Tim is used

(he thinks)

to pain.

Like a seasoned knife eater, he knows he can swallow down every hurt, every adversity, every harmful word or blade thrown his way; knows that he is trained to withstand the feel of their sharp edges cutting down his throat – blood welling up, asphyxiating him – and say not a word of complaint.

But.

The thought of losing

(abandoning)

Jason

(again)

hurts in strange and entirely new ways.

Maybe he's just being selfish

(bad boy)

and doesn't want to lose the one certainty he has, the one _family_ he has, the one person to recognize and care for him.

He doesn't know what to make with these feelings

(with _himself)._

He clenches his eyes shut.

Ducks his head under the blankets.

His temples throb with pain.

(so much for getting better)

The air under his blanket feels humid, heavy like a tongue coiling around him. On his side of the room Jason shifts, exhaling long and low through his nose, disrupting the synchronism of their breathing patterns, making Tim's own chest stutter and freeze, his heart tripping on itself.

Careful not to make too much noise, Tim begins to shift. His shirt is too big. It is sweaty, too, and it sticks to his chest. The coarse cotton chafes against his burns. The boxers – not his own, just like the shirt – hang too low on his hips, making his face burn. He feels like a child playing dress-up with his big brother's clothes. A skinny, scrawny child. Inadequate child.

Beyond his cocoon of blankets, Jason mutters something in his sleep. A name, perhaps. Or just a louder exhale of breath. Outside, the first rays of dawn break through the screen of low, grey clouds. They catch the windows on the tallest skyscrapers, turning Gotham into a beast with one million, fiery eyes.

A new days has come.

Tim turns his back on it.

 

 


	4. Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wonders. He plans. Life has a funny way to bring him back to square one every time, though.

 

**Title:** Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life.

**Verse:** My Brother's Keeper.

**Fandom:** DCU- Batman.

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Genre:** This part:introspection, slice of life.

**Wordcount:** 1700 circa.

**Characters:** Jason Todd and Tim Drake.

**Warnings:** Self-betaed. Mostly old-canon. THE TWIN SCARS ARE BACK. ♥

**Summary:** He wonders. He plans. Life has a funny way to bring him back to square one every time, though.

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

“ **...** _ **S**_ _hit_ ,” is what Tim blurts as he peeks into the kitchen. He clutches onto the door frame for balance, squinting in horror at the levels of destruction spread before him like an alien landscape. Crumbling plaster, layers of dust, open cupboards with squeaky hinges that go “gneeek-gneeek” without anyone actually touching them and chipped paint flaking off their ruined doors.

He takes a moment to soldier himself – deep breaths, in and out, and now even the roof of his mouth feels coated in chalk, the air is so thick with it – then trudges inside. He makes a beeline for one of the two chairs. Gingerly, he checks that it might hold his weight, and once he's sure, he rests his cane

(actually the shank of an old stick umbrella he's found lying in the bedroom)

against the table and slouches down, breathing deep against the pain in his head.

(and chest. And ankle. And hip.)

The cheap formica table is covered in scratches, deep claw-like gorges layered with grime, and it looks like a strong wind might collapse it. There is an unidentified support stuck under one of the legs, probably the side of a take out container folded into a thick square. The fridge hangs open, barren and dirty inside like your regular Arkham cell. The sink looks stained even from a distance, and has long-since lost its shine. Tim holds no hope that it will yield any water if he were to drag himself all the way over; so he just drags the second chair closer and uses it to prop up his leg.

_Time to regroup and restock, brain._

Mulling onto the matter a couple of nights, conveniently... let's say “forgetting”... a dose or two of painkillers for added clarity, and Tim has finally gathered enough corroborating evidence to say that Jason might care for the _idea_ of having a brother, more than he cares for the brother himself.

Since the beginning, Jason has been the one to clean Tim's wounds, change the wrappings, massage his aches, procure him medicine and food. The first couple of days, when the acetaminophen irritated his gastrointestinal tract so bad that Tim retched for hours, bent almost in two over the side of the bed, Jason had been _there,_ saying nothing, a stony presence stretched behind him on the lumpy mattress, strong chest to convulsing back, pushing Tim's sweaty hair away from his forehead, cupping his nape with a big, dry hand, thumbing away the moisture from the flushed, hypersensitive skin of Tim's throat.

He's been taking egregious care of Tim's health, yes; but mostly just ignores him otherwise.

He gives Tim all the blankets in the house and then throws his own jacket on top of them besides, but doesn't care to say goodbye when he comes and goes. He procures medicine and warm soup, but doesn't talk. He makes sure that Tim always has fresh, clean water in reach of the bed

(which doesn't make him a cat. _Nope.)_

and even piled some books on the bedside crate, yellowed, dog-eared things Tim didn't want to know the origin of. But he never – say – sat down and actually _spent some time with Tim._

The evidence so far suggests that Jason is a natural-born good brother, a protector and a carer, more than a fighter, while Tim is--

Well.

_Tim._

Which doesn't seem promising, from this perspective.

Maybe he is a little asshole, and that's why Jason is keeping his distance. Maybe he is a holier-than-thou, shit-eating know-it-all. Maybe he always steals Jason’s clothes for himself. Maybe he's a suicidal little freak that goes around dressed like a clown.

Tim has no way to know.

What he does know, is that he doesn't want to be left behind or thrown away

( _again,_ some cold, damp corner of his mind hisses with a snake-like tongue. _Left behind and thrown away and forgotten_ again)

So he’s decided to make himself

(worthy)

useful.

Patrol duty is out of the question, though. And chances are that Jason won’t let him do any detective work, not in his present state. He has an inkling that he might be good with technology, but their lair is inconveniently bare of anything manufactured after the ’70s. He has no idea how skilled he is at keeping the house, but cleaning around and perhaps frying some eggs

( _frying_ is what you do with eggs, right?)

may be not beyond his ken.

He got up from bed all good and ready to play househusband. But the state of the flat has flushed that plan right down the drain. And Tim is left clutching at straws.

Seriously though, what are they? Runaway orphans out of a Dickens's book, surviving off the scraps they collect on the streets? Are they aliens that require only solar energy to run? Either might explain why their kitchen resembles a bombing site more than anything else. And also why Tim is (moderately) okay after a week of not enough food to satisfy a swallow: just bread, water, the occasional sip of juice and some dry fruit.

(The _other_ explanation, the one Tim refuses to contemplate is that he’s okay because he’s _used to starving himself_. He doesn’t like the idea that he is a serial starvationist. So he just. Will go with the solar-powered alien theory, if you please).

Idly, to take his mind off a tangent more than anything, he starts with his stretching exercises. With his injured leg stretched, he starts to gently pull his foot towards his body, straining to keep the knee straight and at the same contracting the shin muscles. He is supposed to hold his foot in tension for 5 or so seconds, but he grits his teeth, and 5 seconds become 10 and then 30 before he allows himself to relax, wiggle his toes and start anew.

Before leaving for patrol the night before, Jason had instructed him to do some therapy “and no straining yourself and other funny shit, Tim”.

Though “instructed” might not be the proper word for it. For the way Jason had shocked Tim awake with a hand hooked around his throat and pushed him into the pillow, growling out the exact sequence and number of exercises Tim was supposed to do, the hows and whys of each one, mouth pumping hot breath against Tim’s chin.

Without even realizing, Tim reaches up and touches his neck, his eyebrows drawing together in a thoughtful frown. Jason often touches his neck, one way or the other. Tim wonders if it’s an obsession. If this obsession is how he got the scar that runs across the left side of his throat. He wonder if the twin scar that Jason has on the same spot is the result of that same obsession. He wonders if Jason did that to himself, or maybe it was Tim who carved his flesh and made them match?

He wonders.

Idly, he wonders.

But the answers elude him always, like capricious leaves scattered by the wind.

Around him, there is no ambient sound.

No droning fridge, no noisy heating pipes, no slushing of water. There are no creaking floorboards or scurrying vermin in the walls or neighbours raising their voices over the colourful cries of the telly. Even the cupboard doors have stopped swinging and squeaking out in their ducky high pitch. He has no reason not to notice it when Jason comes home, but that’s the thing.

_He doesn’t notice._

Something metallic bangs against the table, and his eyes fly open. He twists towards the door, and Jason is standing there, wearing a clean tee. His jeans are ripped at the knees and riding low on his hips, but those too are fresh from the laundry. He is carrying a brown paper bag, and his scowl is out on display as per usual, a cool radiance of fury permeating his countenance, burning cool like the core of a pulsing blue star.

Narrowed eyes regard Tim for a moment and the younger sibling is readying himself for the explosion. But--

“You’re gonna swallow a fly,” Jason says gruffly.

Tim’s teeth click audibly as his mouths clamps itself shut on autopilot. Sea-foam eyes narrow even more, dart away with visible effort, focusing the heat of his glare onto a meaningless, innocent spot on the cluttered floor.

“Laundry’O Matic,” he explains. And Tim nods as though that made sense, even though he only has a vague idea of what Jason is referring to. Did he go wash their clothes?

Before Tim can contemplate the notion any further, he gets a faceful of red hoodie and baggy jeans. He inhales the clean scent of soap, then disentangles the clothes from his face. He must have arched an eyebrow or made a similar face of inquiry, because Jason is rolling his eyes, still grumpy, but hopefully a bit amused as well, and elaborates: “Couldn't dry-clean the ball gown, Cinderella. Commoner clothes will have to make do.”

His grin is sharp. His wit, perhaps, is meant to wound rather than amuse, but Tim is rubbing the fabric thoughtfully between thumb and index finger, wondering why “Cinderella”, and what does it mean for them, between them? is it a nickname, a barb, does it have a story behind it, is it a spur of the moment thing? and what is he supposed to feel now, is it appropriate or is it arrogant of him to feel warm and nice, drowsy, almost? so much so that before he knows it he’s whispering:

“Thank you,” he means it, too, but he gets the feeling that it might be a first, or some epochal turning point, some milestone in their shared history. Because Jason goes still for an heartbeat, averts his face, his eyes, and it’s while licking his lips, a nervous gesture, that he mutters: “No thanks needed.”

He ducks out of the kitchen, low-riding jeans and brown grocery bag and all, and Tim can’t help but lift himself up to his feet and follow, dragged, somewhat unconsciously, in his brother’s wake.

(He wonders if this, too, this _pull_ , is a common occurrence between them)

(He wonders whether he'll find out soon)

(He _wants_ to).

 

 


End file.
